New Religion Rafting On Some Of America’s Most Primal White Water

Automobile Magazine
Special Adventure Issue
By Marco R. Della Cava

Our adventure begins under a massive white tent at the head quarters or ACE Adventure Center. ACE is near the hamlet of Oak Hill. Which is ten-minute drive firm the areas nearest big town. Fayetteville. Population: a few thousand. If you want to talk numbers the trees have
it, blanketing this expanse of hills and hollers in a thick green carpet that almost defies habitation.
ACE’s owners have staked their claim to 1400 of these acres where they have created an enclave dedicated to the outdoor adventurer. Whether through packages or custom-tailored trips, ACE’s guides cater to the novice and expert alike in the sports of whitewater rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, and horseback riding.
We have opted for a two-day package called Saddles and Paddles followed by an all-day rafting trip: seventy-two hours along and in a river that is one of the nation’s oldest (try 65 million years) and fiercest (a New offshoot called the Gauley River offers more than 100 Class III to V-plus rapids when the Summersville Dam is uncorked each fall).
At ACE headquarters we sign away our lives and take a look around. The place cloud double as a set for one of the endless sequels to Friday the 13th, its rustic mess halls and briefing rooms sitting at the edge of a glassy pond. Toss in complete darkness and things could get spooky fast.
Day One kicks off with an introduction to Knucks, short for Knuckles, the handsome brown quarter horse who will carry me down to river’s edge over the next four hours.
"I tried my hand at the American Dream, good job in power-plant repair work, a wife, but it didn’t work out," Metheny says softly. Then a big grin. "I’d rather be here."
For six years, he’s guided paddlers down the New and its tributaries. Soon, it will be my time to ride. With night falling, I head for my tent while Metheny flops out on a picnic table a few feet from the New.
Along the entire length of this same river, some eighty-five towns thrived in the early part of the 1900s. Then diesel engines took over from steam, and machines replaced me in the mines.
I join a group of five from the Midwest-mom, dad, two sons, and a girlfriend- in one of eight ACE rafts putting in near the town of Cunard, named for the British shipping family that once had coal interests in the region. We’ll be rafting an eight-mile stretch that ends at the New River Gorge Bridge. Metheny gathers us. His tips are brief and echo a single theme: Don’t be stupid. Do everything to stay inside the self-bailing rubber raft by wedging your feet downstream, the better to bounce off oncoming rocks.
I pop up front with teenage Casey. We’re to paddle in sync, apace-setting rhythm that the rest are to follow. If we foul up, the boat will spin like a top as it bolts downstream. In the first easy hour on the New, we do a decent job of keeping an eye on each other. But as the rapids increase in difficulty, it’s every paddler for himself.
Our resolve is tested immediately on Uppers and Middle Keeny, both Class IV rapids. Ask a white-water expert how a rapid is classified and you’ll get a lot of tech-talk on ratios between the amount of grade drop per mile and the size of the rocks and the width of the river.
Forget that: It’s really a function of just how tight that knot in your stomach becomes. The Knot is achingly tight as we approach Lower Keeney, our first Class V rapid of the day. Casey and I exchange glances as Metheny yells, "Ready," and then as we approach the rapid’s lip, "Paddle forward!" Our white paddles disappear into the froth as the raft’s rear pitches widely to the right.
With the nose headed straight for a boulder, Metheny bellows "Right forward!" in an effort to get us moving away from trouble. I’m flailing to frantically to look back, but if I could I would have seen Metheny pitched almost entirely off the left side of the raft as he literally puts his body into successfully steering the craft to safety.
We shoot each other huge grins, but there is no time for celebration. Next up is Double Z, a zigzagging Class V that requires the raft to slalom across the river like a skier running gates. We manage it without losing anyone overboard. Then something unexpected happens.
It starts to rain. Hard. Not far ahead is the New River Gorge Bridge, smooth sailing with not a rapid in sight. Goose bumps flare up everywhere; the solution is obvious, and leaving Metheny alone on board we all dive into the bathtub-warm water.
Rafting guides John Cornwell and Terri Knepper round up their gang: me and seven others. Most opt for kayaks, but I choose what is reputed to be a better teaching aid, a kayak-like craft called a sit-on-top. It has the marked advantage of not requiring you to sit inside a shell and
therefore provides easier escapes when you wind up upside down. Which is often. We put in near Thurmond, and plan to float the next seven miles and take out in Cunard. This southern section of the New mercifully offers mostly Class I through III rapids. Nevertheless, it is guaranteed that, as mocking sign at ACE headquarters informs, you will get wet.
The slow pace has its rewards, mostly the kind that come from sitting inches off the river’s surface. Observing life from a dragonfly’s eye view. It’s peaceful and soothing, escapism at its best. I set the paddle across my lap, lean back, and let the current ease me downriver. And then just as suddenly, the dream chatters. Cornwell yells out "Buzzard’s Bend! All sit-on-tops stay to the right!" Churning white water dead ahead. Two stokes and the eddy is mine.
I creep forward into Buzzards Bend, struggling to keep my kayak pointed straight. The river is determined to send me packing. Five times before it has succeeded. But I’m a man on a mission to play, to understand kayaking’s lure, to find out what surfing West Virginia is all about.
A single paddle stroke forward and I arrive. The sit-on-top suddenly stops fighting the current and, despite the deafening rush of water, stays put. I am surfing. Not exactly hang-ten-quality river surfing, but surfing nevertheless. In this New River moment-I confess it was not much more-I am somewhere that man normally isn’t supposed to be floating effortlessly at the heart of a power that is hundreds of times our own. Earthly magic.
Although so many moments are fleeting this is one that sears the synapses, that puts bustle of modern times in perspective that endures.